Last year, Discord users notified the FBI of alleged threats from a teenager accused of a deadly Georgia school shooting, the FBI said.

ATLANTA (WANF/Gray News) – The FBI said it believes the suspected shooter at a Winder, Georgia, high school has been charged with making an online threat in May 2023.

The FBI said its National Threat Operations Center had received several anonymous tips from users of the social media site Discord regarding “online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time.”

The teen, now 14, is being held at the Gainesville Area Youth Detention Center, accused of killing two students and two teachers and wounding nine others at Apalachee High School Wednesday morning.

The teenager is expected to appear in court on Friday.

A Jackson County deputy reviewed a May 2023 FBI tip about a college shooting threat, WANF reported.

The FBI said the Jackson County Sheriff's Office found a potential suspect, a 13-year-old boy, later identified as Colt Gray, who was questioned along with his father.

The report said Gray “expressed concern that someone would accuse him of threatening to shoot up a school, saying he would never say such a thing, even in jest.”

Gray's father said there were shotguns in the house and that Gray was “allowed to use them under supervision but did not have free access to them.”

The incident report states that the FBI information was further investigated on May 23. Information was received from multiple IP addresses, but the exact location was unclear.

The report states that the information included information about the Discord account's users and that the email address associated with it belonged to Gray. It also states that the account was created on April 2, which is outside the time period when Gray said he deleted his account.

The report said the information contained “inconsistent information.” IP addresses show the Discord account was used in Fort Valley and Statesboro, but also in Buffalo, New York, and northern Virginia. The Discord account name was also in Russian, and the account’s phone number was listed as a LaGrange phone number.

A translation of the Russian letters spelled out “Lanza,” which investigators believe referred to Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter.

A deputy spoke to Gray and his father again. Gray told authorities he stopped using his Discord account because “too many people kept hacking his account and he was afraid someone would use his information for malicious purposes.”

The father and son also told the MP that they did not know the email address and did not speak Russian.

“At this time, due to the inconsistent nature of the information received by the FBI, the allegation that Colt or (his father) is the user behind the Discord account that made the threat cannot be substantiated,” the report said.

At a news conference Wednesday night, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified the students killed at Apalachee High School as 14-year-olds Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and the slain teachers as 53-year-old Christina Irimie and 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall.

The agency said nine other victims — eight students and a teacher — were transported to area hospitals. At least six of the victims, including two who were shot, were transported to a campus at Northeast Georgia Medical Center, hospital officials said. The two people shot did not have life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

Armed with an assault rifle, the teenager turned the gun on students in a school hallway when his classmates refused to open the door for him to return to his algebra class, classmate Lyela Sayarath said, The Associated Press reported.

The teenager had left second-period algebra class early, and Sayarath figured the quiet student who had recently transferred was missing class again.

But he came back later and wanted to go back to class. Some students wanted to open the locked door but withdrew.

“I guess they saw something, but for some reason they didn't open the door,” Sayarath said.

When she looked through a window in the door, she saw the student turn around and heard a burst of gunfire.

“There were about 10 or 15 of them at a time, back to back,” she said.

The math students crouched on the ground and crawled around from time to time, looking for a safe corner to hide.

Two school protective services officers encountered the shooter within minutes of a report of gunshots, said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The teen immediately surrendered and was taken into custody.

Reports of a shooting in progress drew a large number of law enforcement officers to Apalachee High School in Barrow County shortly before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The agency said the suspect will be charged with murder and tried as an adult.

Authorities said an AR-style weapon was used.

Barrow County schools will be closed for the remainder of the week. The county is about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Apalachee High School has about 1,900 students, according to Georgia education officials' records obtained by The Associated Press.

According to the Barrow County School System, the school became the second largest public high school in Barrow County when it opened in 2000. The school is named after the Apalachee River on the southern edge of Barrow County.

Copyright 2024 WANF via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.